When it comes to the frustration of unfulfilled potential, the Indiana Pacers'Roy Hibbert spent the first three years of his NBA career among the league leaders.

Hibbert has all the tools to be one of the best big men in the league, starting with his sheer size and his solid grasp of how to work the post for good shots. But for too long, Hibbert was too easy to knock off his spots, too soft in the paint to put those tools to good use. He’s always been pretty good, but you always knew he could be a good deal better.

Then came last year, and it looked like Hibbert had finally had his breakout—he cut down on his fouls, he bolstered his offensive efficiency and began looking like the franchise center many knew he could be. He averaged career highs in points (12.8), rebounds (8.8) and field-goal percentage (49.7), earning a spot on the East All-Star team.

In the first half of this season, though, not only did Hibbert slide back to his old, frustrating form, but he actually got much, much worse. He shot 41.3 percent in the first half, a mind-bogglingly low number for a player who takes 79.8 percent of his shots from 10 feet and in. Hibbert’s shooting at the rim has dropped from 57.5 percent last year to 48.2 percent this year. His shooting from 3-10 feet has gone from 50.3 percent to 39.4 percent.

There were a few reasons for this, the most immediate being Hibbert’s health—he suffered a wrist injury last season and it has bothered him for much of this year. For a player who relies so heavily on his hook shot, a wrist injury is no picnic.

There’s also his head. Hibbert signed a maximum $54 million contract this summer, and he doesn’t seem to have handled the pressure that comes with that very well.

But the good news for the Pacers is that Hibbert is starting to come around.

Since the All-Star break, Hibbert has looked much more confident in the post and has reached double figures in scoring five straight games. He is averaging 12.8 points and, most important, shooting 56.9 percent from the field in six games.

Even with the wrist problem, he has continued to work, and now that the wrist is coming around, the work is paying off. In a big win Sunday over Central Division rival Chicago, Hibbert had 18 points and 10 rebounds.

“It’s getting to a point where I should have been at the beginning of the year,” Hibbert said. “I have had a little bit of a wrist problem that’s been fixed actually. So my right hand is feeling a lot better, my left is still good. But I will tell you this, though—after practice, the bigs all get together and we work for about 30, 45 minutes on touch and post moves. It’s not like we come in here and work and leave. We’re a team that wants to go far.”

If the Pacers are to go far, they’re going to need the more recent version of Hibbert, not the one who struggled so badly, even at the rim. In hindsight, with Danny Granger out and with Hibbert having such struggles, the job that Frank Vogel has done in keeping the team near the top of the East is all the more impressive.

Granger is back. And Hibbert looks to be back, too.

Looking ahead to the playoffs, every potential Pacers matchup in the East is going to require that Hibbert play well and be a strong scoring option inside. That’s most obviously the case against the conference-leading Miami Heat. The Pacers are the one team in the East that could put a legitimate scare into Miami, and if they can have Hibbert dominating inside, there is no one on the Miami roster who can keep him in check.

He was utterly frustrating, again, to start the year. But as Hibbert’s numbers climb back up, so do the Pacers’ chances of pulling a surprise in the East.